#134 DLR Systemleichtbau EmpowerAX Demopart, EmpowerAX Days Interview with Xenia Köneke during JEC 2024 (English)
05.08.2024 17 min Staffel 5 Episode 91
Zusammenfassung & Show Notes
Have you ever considered how the aerospace industry manages to reduce the weight of their planes? Of course the carbon nacelle and the vertical tail comes into the mind, but what about systems, like the breaks of the aircraft?
How do you stop a fully loaded Airbus A350 with 200 tons on the runway safely? Breaking systems are extremely heavy therefore new technologies need to be developed and applied on future generation of planes. The task however is extremely challenging, because you cannot just replace material A by B, but need to apply sytemthinking in engineering.
Today Composites Lounge introduces you with Xenia Sophia Köneke of DLR - Institut für Systemleichtbau a demonstrator part that displays systemthinking in components manufacture.
And here is the catch: how do you combine lightweight processes like additive manufacturing and injection molding that need to follow a path without start and stops? This is were sophisticated software comes into play.
The approach demonstrated by the DLR Institute for Lightweight Systems, more precisely the DLR Innovation Lab EmpowerAX with their partners 9T Labs, WEBER additive and SWMS is proof that combining conventional composite manufacturing with the high design freedom and agility of the fiber reinforced 3D printing ensures the material is put only where it is really needed.
That is the USP of this systemthought, which brings the functionality into the part that it needs for its application and that makes it cost efficient and resource saving. That's also why the JEC Group's independent jury has awarded it with their elite innovation price.
Xenia and the whole DLR Team are welcoming you to a two day event in Braunschweig Sept. 25/26 in 2024. You will experience high calibre networking, first hand insights into their CFRP (CFK) wing lab and up-to-date know-how co-ordinated by Germany's No 1 aerospace centre.
I will be present on both days, too and encourage you to join our Composites Lounge mission of CREATING SUSTAINABLE VALUE with their partners in Braunschweig.
Once again, I thank the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V. team for organising a public event of this scale, to better our world with sustainable aviation and for opening their doors to the expert public through LinkedIn.
YouTube Podcast: https://youtu.be/YiKUPooJTL4
How do you stop a fully loaded Airbus A350 with 200 tons on the runway safely? Breaking systems are extremely heavy therefore new technologies need to be developed and applied on future generation of planes. The task however is extremely challenging, because you cannot just replace material A by B, but need to apply sytemthinking in engineering.
Today Composites Lounge introduces you with Xenia Sophia Köneke of DLR - Institut für Systemleichtbau a demonstrator part that displays systemthinking in components manufacture.
And here is the catch: how do you combine lightweight processes like additive manufacturing and injection molding that need to follow a path without start and stops? This is were sophisticated software comes into play.
The approach demonstrated by the DLR Institute for Lightweight Systems, more precisely the DLR Innovation Lab EmpowerAX with their partners 9T Labs, WEBER additive and SWMS is proof that combining conventional composite manufacturing with the high design freedom and agility of the fiber reinforced 3D printing ensures the material is put only where it is really needed.
That is the USP of this systemthought, which brings the functionality into the part that it needs for its application and that makes it cost efficient and resource saving. That's also why the JEC Group's independent jury has awarded it with their elite innovation price.
Xenia and the whole DLR Team are welcoming you to a two day event in Braunschweig Sept. 25/26 in 2024. You will experience high calibre networking, first hand insights into their CFRP (CFK) wing lab and up-to-date know-how co-ordinated by Germany's No 1 aerospace centre.
I will be present on both days, too and encourage you to join our Composites Lounge mission of CREATING SUSTAINABLE VALUE with their partners in Braunschweig.
Once again, I thank the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V. team for organising a public event of this scale, to better our world with sustainable aviation and for opening their doors to the expert public through LinkedIn.
YouTube Podcast: https://youtu.be/YiKUPooJTL4
Transkript
So, wonderful good afternoon,
dear LinkedIn community
and Composites Lounge members.
I'm today at JEC world 2024
and we are here
on the booth of DLR Systemleichtbau
( Institute for Lightweight Systems ).
And my guest is Xenia Köneke
and with Xenia
we will talk about EmpowerAX.
Welcome to our show Xenia.
-Thank you, Ilkay
So Xenia we have EmpowerAX.
The demo part is an award winning part
with the JEC group.
Tell us about what was the feature
and why has it been awarded?
The demo part is a collaborative project
within the DLR Innovation Lab EmpowerAX
where we demonstrate
the industrially available process chain
of additive functionalization.
How did we do it?
We brought together our EmpowerAX partners
from material suppliers
and design suppliers
to simulation experts and CAD experts
to provide us printing technology
and demonstrated the capability
of over printing a thermoset shell
multicurved thermoset shell
with high performance,
short and continuous fiber
reinforced materials.
And the EmpowerAX demopart
shows the combination
of conventional composite manufacturing
with the high agility and design freedom
of fiber reinforced 3D printing.
All in all, you can produce composites
in a really cost
efficient and resource
saving way with this approach.
Thanks for this information.
So this part, however,
is not on your booth
here at T90 at JEC World 2024.
It is with Weber, I believe.
Tell us, why is it today with Weber
and not here on this booth?
-It's on the booth of Weber,
because Weber is one
of the collaboration partners
for this project.
So we brought together 12 partners.
The idea araised
at the EmpowerAX event in October 2022,
we had the idea.
One of our partners raised his hand
and said, yeah, I want to have
a demonstrator part for the JEC 2023,
which demonstrates the whole process chain
of additive functionalization.
And then the idea was born
and we asked the partners
and they were on fire.
They were willing to bring in
their own resources.
And so we make it real.
Six months later it was on the JEC,
and Weber was one of the partners
who printed the stiffening ribs
with short fiber reinforced material.
Normally it was not planned
to bring the part to the JEC,
because the booth concept
was already finished
and we thought,
okay, we had it the last year on the JEC,
so it was not planned.
But then we won this great award
and then the partners
were willing to bring it here.
And so it's on the booth of Weber.
And when you go around the half
of the partners
who are involved in the EmpowerAX demo part
have a booth at the JEC, and you can make
a whole empowering additive
functionalization tour
to see all the contributions.
My next question
is about the EmpowerAX Days
and the science days in Braunschweig,
which are traditional and already famous.
Will they take place again this year 2024?
Tell us a bit about it.
Yes. The EmpowerAX days will take place
again this year
on the 25 of September 2024
in our impressive location
at our CFK wing lab
in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, Germany.
At our EmpowerAX Days,
we have a mixed program
with short and scientific
presentations on our stage.
We have some pitches about the new topics,
and we also have an exhibition
in our CFK wing lab
where you can dive really deep
into the topic
of fiber reinforced 3D printing.
So Xenia understood about the EmpowerAX
our part, that we will see, by the way,
tomorrow at Weber's booth,
and we will talk at Weber
again with also SWMS.
I hope I pronounced it the right way,
but tell me,
what is the added value of this
part and your offer?
-The added value of the EmpowerAX demopart
is the cost efficient and resource saving
composite manufacturing.
The approach to combine conventional
composite manufacturing
with the high design,
freedom and agility of the fiber
reinforced 3D printing,
allows to put the material
only there where this really needed.
And this saves material.
And brings the functionality into the part
that it needs for its application
and that makes it cost
efficient and resource saving.
So dear LinkedIn community we are coming
towards the end of day two of JEC World in 2024
and I have interviewed
already, Xenia yesterday remember her.
But now we are continuing
with the innovation award piece
that is here, and I understand
it is one of the technology demonstrators
that can be, for example,
used in air brakes of aircraft.
So we are talking
about real life examples.
The thing is,
this part which you can see here
is quite complex. We have software,
we have additive manufacturing,
and we have carbon composites here.
And of course we have the brain Xenia,
who is organizing this whole project.
What I would like to do,
community is I will hand over
the moderation now to Xenia,
because she will now moderate
with her stakeholders this project.
The stage is yours.
-So welcome from the booth
of Weber Additive at this year's JEC.
Weber is a partner
of our DLR Innovation Lab and EmpowerAX
and exhibiting
our EmpowerAX demo-part at this year.
The EmpowerAX demo-part
demonstrates the concept
of additive functionalization,
which means the combination
of conventional composite manufacturing
with the high agility and design freedom
of fiber reinforced 3D printing.
That makes it possible to apply material
only there where it is really needed,
which leads to cost efficient
and resource saving
composite manufacturing.
The EmpowerAX demo part
is a collaborative project
within the DLR Innovation Lab,
where DLR and 12 industrial partners
demonstrate the industrially
available process chain
of additive functionalization
and demonstrates the capability
of over printing multi curve
thermoset shell
with high performance, short
and continuous fiber reinforced
thermoplastic material.
So here, as you can see
we involve 12 partners.
So we have a partner
that makes the design.
We have material suppliers.
We have simulation
and path planning experts.
And we have also technology provider
and provider for MDT measures afterwards.
The main point of the EmpowerAX demo-part
is this printed rib structure
that stiffens the part.
This rib structure,
short fiber reinforced rib structure
was printed in a coworking session
at Weber Additive in Kronach, Germany,
together with our partner SWMS,
who was responsible for the part planning
and the digital process chain.
And at this point, I would like to welcome
Lars Windels, CEO of SWMS,
a software company
from Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, Germany,
who was really involved in this project.
Lars, at our last EmpowerAX Day in October
2022 you were the person,
you were the partner who raised the hand
and initiated the idea
and said, I want to demonstrate
that for JEC 2023,
that shows the process chain
of additive functionalization
of fiber reinforced 3D printing.
So I'm really sure
that the majority of the people know SWMS.
But maybe you can introduce you,
your company, and what was your part
in the EmpowerAX demo part?
Thank you for the nice introduction.
My name is Lars Windels.
I'm CEO of SWMS.
We are a solution provider
for composite manufacturing processes,
and also we are supporting our customers
with technology and with software
and digitalization products.
On the one hand, we have our product.
It's named Caesar.
And with Caesar we are able to program
such complex parts like this.
On the one hand, we have a module
where we are able to do AFP processes.
On the other hand,
we are able to do additive
manufacturing processes.
And and the third step we provide
is our solutions where we can do
reinforcement fibre lay-ups.
And I think that's the jumping point
that we are able to establish a process
with different process steps.
And here we see a good example,
a really good example for a part,
which combines
the availability of technologies.
And these technologies
are totally different.
And we have to handle it
and we have to handle it
with digitalization processes
that we can say, okay,
the AFP shell we can use it.
Then we have the additive
manufacturing process step after that.
And the third step
is the fiber reinforcement process step.
And then we are able to say okay
this part could be possible
to manufacture now.
And I think that's the jumping point.
Thank you Lars for this introduction.
So we printed these parts
or we printed the rib of this part
at the place at Weber in Kronach,
together with you, with the team of SWMS,
together with the team of the DLR
and with the guys from Weber.
Could you explain
what was the highest challenge
in this context
and why the pathfinding is so important
over robotic 3D printing?
In the first moment we thought, okay,
we have to slice a normal rib.
We see here a rib.
And this rib is responsible
for the stiffness of this part.
And so we say okay, that's no problem,
our software solution
will support this kind of path panning, no problem.
But then we have a deeper look
in this problem.
And then we saw okay
what is the challenge.
The challenge is that
we have to get a pass
which is continuous over the whole part,
so that we avoid starts stops
that we are avoiding to say, okay,
here's a starting point for that pass
or stopping area here or something else.
So we say, okay,
we have to generate a path algorithm,
a path planning algorithm
where we're able to say, okay, in one shot
we are able to produce this part.
And that was really challenging.
But I think you will see the result.
It really works. And it's pretty cool
that we are able
to integrate such an algorithm,
which is optimized for this kind of parts.
And I think that's a big advantage
of our software at the moment.
Okay. This was a great explanation
for the challenges
that we had with the path planning.
So as my colleagues always say,
it's like drawing
the house of Santa Claus.
You have one point where you start
and you have one point where you end,
and the main point
is that the path planning
for robotic 3D printing
is like drawing the plan,
how the robot should work.
And here we have a complete
industrially available process change.
So if I'm a person who wants
to stiffening
structures, I could go to Weber.
Weber printed the short, fiber
reinforced rib structure
because they have 60 years of experience
in extrusion technologies,
and they are able to process
between two kilograms
per hour to 45kg per hour
of material in
different degrees of reinforcement.
They could print 3 to 4 chairs
in one day. There's a reason
why they printed the rib structure.
And if I want would like
to stiffening something,
I could go to Weber
and they would do it for you.
Could I also go to SWMS
and you would do it for me?
Yes. We are offering this solution
for the market,
but we have some things to do.
And it's not only on the software side,
it's on the quality assurance side.
I think that's really important
that we have to improve
some quality assurance,
in-line inspection, etc.,
that we have a good part
after our manufacturing processes.
And on the one hand
maybe thermographic process
is a good way, etc.
maybe it's a normal CCD video
is a good quality
inspection system, etc.
but we are still in discussion.
What is a good way
to have inspection processes?
Yeah, it's a really good point
that last mentioned
the point of quality assurance
process qualification
and also sustainability,
because these are the topics
that we mentioned also as very important.
And if you want to experience
more about it
then you can do that at our EmpowerAX Day
on the 25th of September 2024
at our CFK wing lab in Brunswick
at our DLR Institute
for Lightweight Systems.
So there we have an event.
It brings together the community of fiber
reinforced 3D printing.
We have really impressive presentations
of different speakers.
We have in-house exhibition
where you can get in contact
with the companies.
We have a tour
through our 3D printing infrastructure,
and you will have
a lot of networking possibilities.
And if that is not enough for you,
you can stay for two days,
because the next day
we have our DLR Wissenschaftstag (Science Day).
On the topic of resource efficiency
and sustainability
through lightweight systems.
And at this day, we don't only talk
about fiber reinforced 3D printing,
we talk about resource efficiency
and sustainability
in the whole composite site production.
We would be very happy to welcome you
at our place in Brunswick, Germany,
in the north of Germany.
And we'd be very happy to have you here.
And at this point, I would say thanks
to our partners and thanks to Ilkay
for having this chance
to present the demo part
and maybe to see you
in September in Braunschweig.
So, Xenia, thank you so much
for this nice introduction
to your innovation,
EmpowerAX awarded part.
Very, very interesting.
Getting so much details about it.
I understand you have been here already
in April 2024
to the JEC innovation award celebrations
and now to see it here on the Weber booth,
which we will thank, of course,
also the Weber crew
for hosting us here on their booth.
We have not been at DLR,
we have not been at SWMS.
We have been here on the Weber booth.
And great to see that innovation
is processing, is going on.
As you see community, innovation,
technology and this in a sustainable way
is continuing.
We are enabling aircrafts.
We are enabling hydrogen
e-commerce flights
with lightweight technologies.
And nothing better than seeing this.
So as Xenia said,
there will be these EmpowerAX days
and the science days in Braunschweig soon.
Mark it in your calendar
and hope to see you soon again.
-So if you ask yourself
how you can attend at this events,
then just follow our LinkedIn account
of the Institute for Lightweight Systems
and DLR Innovation Lab EmpowerAX
that you will get all the information
you need. And in the weeks after the JEC,
we will prepare everything
for the registration
(Note: Meanwhile REGISTRATIONS OPEN NOW!)
And here at our place
you can see the demo part
and you can see a lot of other things.
And we would be very happy
to welcome you in Brunswick.